Brian Boyd: NYC moped driver who killed 'Gone Girl' actress Lisa Banes in a hit-and-run gets 1 to 3 years
MANHATTAN, NEW YORK: The unlicensed driver who brutally plowed down 'Gone Girl' actress Lisa Banes on a Manhattan street with his moped was sentenced to one to three years of prison time on Wednesday, November 30 by a Manhattan judge. Judge Gregory Carro of the state Supreme Court overruled the prosecution's objections to Brian Boyd's sentencing. They asserted that the 27-year-old's allegations to probation officers after confessing to second-degree manslaughter and running away from the crime scene in September rendered his plea agreement invalid.
On June 4, 2021, Boyd, 27, ran a red light at West 64th Street and Amsterdam Avenue and struck Banes, 65, who was in the crosswalk. On a surveillance camera, he is seen falling off his unregistered electric scooter, getting up, walking a little distance to look at the actress who is covered in blood, and then leaving. He departed for Harlem to get his bike mended when he was seen on camera cracking open a drink with his teeth. Banes died 10 days later at a hospital, as per reported by NY Post.
READ MORE
What role did Lisa Banes play on 'The Orville'? Hulu show airs title card tribute for late actress
“Boyd is a danger to anyone in New York City,” Banes’ wife Kathryn Kranhold said during the hearing. “Anyone crossing the street with the right of way.” She said “my life stopped” when Banes died after 10 days in a coma, as per reports from NY Post. The actress was hit near West 64th Street and Amsterdam Avenue while en route to meet her wife for supper on the Upper West Side. “When she didn’t show up for dinner at 6:30 I waited a few minutes,” Kranhold said in Manhattan Supreme Court. “My friends reassured me she was fine." “I fled their apartment and I fled down Broadway. I panicked. I called her. I texted her,” she added. “Little did I know a block away she was being taken into an ambulance.” To attend all of the court proceedings, Kranhold traveled from Los Angeles, where she and Banes moved in 2011. She claimed that the loss of her wife had created a "gaping hole" in her life as well as the lives of everyone who "deeply and profoundly" loved her. “You all would have loved her if you met her before Brian Boyd killed her,” Kranhold told a packed courtroom," as per reported by DailyNews.
Boyd said the light was yellow when he struck Banes, that he had tried to rescue her, and that she was wearing headphones and looking at her phone when he met with probation officials in October as part of his agreement, according to Carro. All of it was untrue. He continued by saying Boyd ran a red light, hit Banes, and then raced off to a bike shop to get a beer. The court refrained to impose a harsher punishment, stating that the city "has a problem" with motorized bikes and that he wanted riders to be aware that they could face jail time if they do harm, according to the reports from ABC news. Before Carro read the punishment on Wednesday, November 30, Boyd made a brief apology, "I'm extremely sorry, and I don't really have the words. I sorry."